That Space In Your Heart
by EBStarr
Summary: Cordano fic Lizzie and Robert coming to their senses.
1. Show Me Your Face

DISCLAIMER.  The author does not own Elizabeth, Romano, Weaver, Carter or (just to cover all the bases) Dunkin Donuts.

Note: This story takes place next September, ie when the season 10 premiere would be.  I've changed nothing that's already happened, other than to give Romano an office in the ER (I'm not sure he really has one).  Sadly, he's still an amputee; and (less) sadly, Mark is still dead.

**Chapter 1.****  Show me your face**

_Mommy.__  Mommy._

She rolled over, facing the middle of the bed, trying not to slip out of sleep.  A small hand slunk over her bare arm, leaving a trace of warm perspiration.  Ella was chubby, she got very hot in these long summer nights.  

--_I have to change the sheets again today, _Elizabeth thought.

Realizing that she'd woken up, she willed her eyes to open to the dimness of summer morning and closed shades.  Ella was behind her, whining, but she hadn't the energy to roll over just yet.  She looked at the smooth, statuesque face before her; the soft lips, lacking their fatuous curve in the slackness of sleep; the wild thatch of brown hair that Eddie always pushed back with his right hand when he's flirting—

Eddie.  Shit.

Sleep fled before the new worry.  Eddie'd stayed the night.  Damn him.  He liked to fall asleep after sex, flinging his limbs every which way and reposing in blissful satisfaction.  He'd wake up at two or three in the morning and sneak out, a habit both useful and, somehow, inauspicious.

She flipped over to face Ella, who must have seen him already.  "Morning, sweetie," she said in a calm voice, trying to act natural.  "Give Mommy a second and I'll come out and make you cinnamon toast, okay?"

"I want peanut butter," Ella said.

"Okay.  Okay," she said, wondering frantically how to get Eddie out the door without letting Ella notice too much.  She was getting too old now to be completely oblivious.  They needed to be more careful.

Ella toddled out the door, thinking of nothing but peanut butter.  Elizabeth sighed.  She couldn't keep worrying so much.  There were so many more important things she needed to do for Ella.  –Like making that peanut butter toast.

She slipped out of bed and, without changing from the thin clingy tank top and cotton PJ pants, padded softly into the kitchen.  The floor felt icy after the lovely warmth of Eddie's feet against hers in the bed.  

But she didn't want, she had never wanted him to keep the bed warm next to her.  She'd never wanted to wake up to his face, as cute as that face was.

She slathered the peanut butter on thick for Ella's lavish tastes as the little girl sat at the table, looking at a book she couldn't yet read.  She was getting there, though; the other day she recognized the letter O.  Quite a feat for a two-year-old.  _She'll be smart,_ Elizabeth thought, _no, brilliant._

The strong, fatty odor of the peanut butter started slithering out from the toaster.  Ella closed her eyes, pleased at the smell.  Elizabeth took the toast out – it was only lightly browned, Ella hated blackened bread –slapped it on a plate, and placed it in front of her daughter.

She looked surreptitiously back at her bedroom.  He would be sleeping for awhile.  Dorsett had an afternoon flight to tomorrow's conference, she recalled; it was why they'd stayed up so late and why she felt so wrecked now, since they hadn't gotten to sleep until about three hours ago.

She crept over to sit in front of the TV, but didn't turn it on.  Next to the couch was a phone book, which she considered, head tilted, for a few minutes before picking up.  

She'd resisted this long, but she might as well call again.  He might not have gotten her first message; it'd been three weeks since anyone at the hospital even saw him.

She dialed the number and waited, a little bit nervous.  Although she'd seen him around since his operation, it would only be a quick glance of recognition as he headed towards the PT wing, pretending to be in a hurry.  They hadn't really spoken and she was glad, because she still didn't know what to say.  It just seemed wrong not to call him, after everything that had happened.

Three rings, and then the static of an answering machine.  "Leave a message," said the brusque voice, eschewing identification whatsoever.  "I'll get back to you."

_What a lovely guy,_ she thought, listening to the message.  She almost hung up the phone.  Her eyes kept drifting back to her bedroom, as if she needed Eddie's permission to call a friend.  Ridiculous.

"Robert," she said, lowering her voice so Eddie wouldn't wake up.  "Uh…  It's Elizabeth.  I – I was wondering how you were doing.  No one at the hospital knows where you are, and you haven't shown up for therapy, and…"  

She was babbling, justifying her call (to Eddie?  to him?  to herself?), and she cut it off abruptly.  "Well.  Call me back."

She hung up slowly and noticed herself looking guiltily behind her, yet again.

~

"Not at the conference, Elizabeth?" Carter said after Elizabeth rushed down to the ER for an MVA.

"Someone's got to hold the fort while the other surgeons are away," Elizabeth smiled.

He nodded across the hall.  "Your guy's a DOA," he said.  "Sorry we paged you for nothing."

"No, that's fine," Elizabeth said.  She yawned a bit and looked longingly at the Dunkin Donuts coffee steaming in Jing-Mei's hand.

"Sorry," Chen said with a laugh.  "I need this one, but I think Susan made some coffee in the lounge."

"They should have built a Dunkin Donuts over Doc Magoo's, instead of another useless greasy spoon," Elizabeth grumbled.

She sighed as she walked over to the lounge.  Her legs felt weighted, as if she hadn't already had two cups of coffee this morning.  

The dusty mini-mirror hanging on the cupboard door confirmed her suspicions; the bags under her eyes were three shades of purple and her face was pasty.  She bent over the sink to splash cold water on her face and behind her neck.

"You all right, Elizabeth?" Kerry said from behind her.

She shrugged and poured herself a generous cup.  "I don't know what's wrong.  Usually I can stay up all night and feel absolutely fine in the morning.  But I went to sleep at two yesterday and for some reason I'm slowing down."

"It could just be stress," Weaver said, shrugging.  "Or—" and her voice grew pointed --  "you could try to get sleep if you know you'll be working in the morning."

"Oh, bloody Christ, Kerry, give it a rest," Elizabeth snapped.  "Can't you forget to be an administrator for a second and talk like a normal human being?"

Kerry lifted her eyebrows and looked down at the newspaper in front of her.  At least she didn't start crying this time.

Guiltily Elizabeth snatched a few minutes to sit by the counter and sip her coffee.  Carter and Abby came in with their arms around each other's waists, oblivious to the world.

Then the door slammed open and Elizabeth, who had been scrutinizing the scuff marks on the floor, heard a crusty, brusque voice say, "Hey, can we actually get some _work _done around here, instead of –"

As Elizabeth's head snapped up towards the source of the familiar voice, he fell silent.  For a moment dismayed surprise covered his features, until he smoothed them out again.

Elizabeth was still off-balance.  "Robert!  You're – you're – back."

"It would appear so."  He looked quickly away from her and said, "Uh, Abby, right?  You're the head nurse, do you want to go out there and do some nursing?"

Abby shot him a glare that he returned with equanimity.  Carter followed her out, most likely to continue what they hadn't finished before Romano came in.   

With the room silent except for the rustle of Kerry's newspaper, Elizabeth could hear his measured breathing.  She tried to drink her coffee but found her hands shaky, probably from all the coffee she'd already had. 

In the months since she'd seen him, he'd gotten so much older.  His eyes were deeper set, the bones of his face pressing more sharply through his skin.  His jaw was grimly clenched, and every muscle in his face was taut.

"Well," he said finally.  "Dr. Corday."

"Dr. Romano," she said, archly imitating him.  "You're back."

His smile was harsh enough to seem like a grimace.  "Didn't think I'd be able to show my face here again, did you?"

"You disappeared," Elizabeth said without returning his intended smile.  She was treading carefully around him, trying not to set off his anger or remind him of all the baggage of last year.  He'd thrown her off-balance with the distant airs he was putting on.  "I wasn't sure what to think."

"Well, don't worry, Dr. Corday," he said, with an odd, twisted smile as he uttered the formal title.  "As long as you're here, I'll keep coming back."

She returned his impudent expression.  They'd hit their usual note for a moment, playfully sarcastic, parsing for weakness.  "Glad to hear it," she parried with a teasing edge to her voice.  "Working here was starting to seem too pleasant without you around."

He expelled a short breath through his nostrils, as if that passed for a laugh.  "Yeah."

She frowned, puzzled.  The lightheartedness had vanished again into the twilight of an equilibrium shattered, a line blurred.  It was easy to forget, until it had already happened, that they had the power to hurt each other now.

She wanted to make peace with a kinder joke, but Romano nodded his leave and strode out of the lounge, the black coat flowing behind him.  She realized he still wore that coat, as if it would hide the lack of a left arm.

Elizabeth noticed Kerry looking up at her with a cool, evaluative stare.  "What is it?" she asked, exasperated.

Weaver didn't look away.  "I was wrong about Romano," she said reflectively.  "He _has _evolved.  In a way."

Something about that sentence made Elizabeth want to cry.  She clasped her hands together for a second, composing herself.  "He has to," she said.


	2. Home Again

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters.  This is just what would happen if I did.

**Chapter 2.****  Home Again**

Thirty seconds.  Twenty-nine.

It was the first time Rocket Romano had ever counted down the minutes left till he would allow himself to take a break.  

It was the first time he'd _taken a break._

With twenty-eight seconds left, he gave up on fulfilling his self-determined time quota and slammed out of his office.  Boredom was an ugly thing.  As was a one-armed surgeon.  And a career that relied on other people's suffering.

This morning, before he barged into the lounge and saw her standing two yards away, he'd been wondering why he'd returned to these halls that smelled of sterilization and death, to the job no one needed him to fulfill.

But then she was there, in front of him.  Looking like hell in an utterly enchanting way: those deep violet shadows under her eyes, betraying her exhaustion; the feverish red flush splashed across her cheekbones; the trembling tension of her mouth.  He couldn't keep his eyes off the shivering droplets of water clinging to the tendrils of hair around her neck, sliding down the side of her neck to disappear under the collar of her scrubs.

He winced and drew his mind away from the memory.  He couldn't think about Lizzie anymore without recalling in bitter humiliation that moment of confession as she tended his severed arm.  Had he imagined it, or was there a new kind of self-consciousness when she talked to him?  As if she pitied him, felt sorry for him.  His chest tightened with impotent rage, at himself and at Elizabeth and especially that goddamned helicopter that started the whole thing.

He decided he'd go and check on a patient who had come in with third-degree burns at midnight, see how the surgery went.  It would occupy him for a few minutes.

The elevator was empty as Romano came in.  In the silent moment before the doors closed, he gave himself up to a tingle of lonely anticipation – would he see her, would she pause when he approached?  Would he be able to control himself throughout another excruciatingly distant conversation?

But then someone catapulted herself into the elevator, squeezing through as the doors began to close, nearly slamming into Romano himself.  He backed away, containing his irritation, and the young blonde turned to him with a dimpled smile and said in one breath, "Sorry about that I'm just in the worst hurry ever."

He nodded and gave her a tight little half-smile.  

She was holding a child, a little chubby thing with blonde ringlets and wide blue eyes that he recognized from somewhere.  Romano examined the little girl with a friendly wink.  "Hey there."

She looked back at him, her gaze probing him with frank curiosity, and he remembered where he'd seen her eyes before.  

Then Ella pointed at the loose left arm of his jacket and said, "Arm.  Arrrrm."

The woman flushed deeply and tried to shush Ella.  Romano shook his head.  "No, uh, it's okay."  He reached out his index finger to her curled fists and touched the miniature fingernails lightly.  "Ella can do no wrong in my eyes."

"You know Ella?" the woman said, her embarrassment dissipating.

"Yeah.  I'm, uh, I used to be Dr. Corday's boss, actually."  He tried to laugh.  "Those were the good old days."  Of course, she'd hated him back then.  And half the time he hated her too, but the air between them would always crackle with fury.  Fury and lust.  And they had never been able to stay furious, had always ended up sharing those sly glances of recognition after one or the other had emerged the victor.

The elevator lurched to a stop.  "I'm Chris, by the way," said the woman as they stepped out.

"Robert Romano."

"Sorry, I'd shake your hand but mine are kind of full.  Listen, Dr. Corday doesn't know I'm coming, do you know where I could find her?"

"I'd guess the lounge," Robert said.  "I'll take you there, if you want."

She smiled cautiously at him, sneaking a curious look at his arm.  Romano nodded down the hall to the lounge and walked a little ahead.

The lounge was empty, but as they emerged Elizabeth herself rushed by, looking frantic and frazzled, her hair in a complete mess.  She recognized Chris and skidded to a stop.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, peering at Ella with clear worry.

"I'm so sorry about this, I know you're busy, but my sister—"

Romano faded away, back into the lounge, and poured himself a cup of coffee, keeping his ears pricked to hear what was going on outside.

"She was in a car accident, and she's five months pregnant, and I promised her I'd come because she's –"

Curtly Elizabeth cut Chris off before she could start to cry.  "I understand.  Go on.  Take all the time you need."

"Thank you so much, Dr. Corday."

As Romano emerged from the lounge, Elizabeth waved a sympathetic good-bye to Chris and took Ella's hand, looking worried.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

"I have an open laporotomy in about five minutes and the man's going to bleed out if I don't get to him in about thirty seconds.  I can't get to the day care center in time and—"

"Lizzie," he said, forgetting his mental resolve to act cool to her.  "I'll take her.  Don't worry."

She looked up at him, considered for a moment, and then smiled.  "Thank you.  Thank you so much."

"No problem."  He gave Ella another little wink, and she stared warily at him.

Elizabeth walked down the hall towards the scrub room, checking back over her shoulder about twelve times to see that Romano hadn't let Ella wander off and put something sharp or poisonous in her mouth.  _Nice to see how much she trusts me, Romano grumbled to himself as he took Ella's hand and let her press the down button on the elevator._

~

Late that night, the door to Romano's office opened without a knock.

He looked up slowly, lingering on the self-deceiving hope that the face he'd been imagining was the one at the door.  

But it was Lewis, her face warm and friendly.  "Hey, Robert," she said.

"Hi," Romano said with a brief, not-too-grumpy nod.  Susan wasn't too bad.  Rather a sweetheart, actually, unlike the rest of the idiots out there.

"Jerry brought in donuts," she said.  "They're disappearing pretty fast, and I thought you might want one.  You didn't take a lunch break."

"Hunh," Romano said.  "Yeah, why not.  Jerry can spare the calories."

Susan giggled.  "So could I, but who cares…"  She paused.  "Hey, Robert – welcome back."

He shrugged.  "Thanks."

A big bakery box lay open on the desk.  Romano took a big cinnamon donut and bit into it with relish.  He'd forgotten what good food tasted like; he'd stopped cooking at home after the tea fiasco, and most of his meals these days came out of a can.

"Hmm, yeah, but the guy would have gone into failure anyway," Jing-Mei was saying.

"She could've waited," Kerry said.

Robert pricked up his ears, hoping for a useful piece of ER gossip he could wield later as a weapon.

"Well, the treatment means you don't _risk failure," Susan said.  "I mean, it did save his liver."_

"Too bad someone nicked the bladder," Kerry said.  "People will sue for anything.  She shouldn't be surprised this is happening."

"I smell scandal," Romano said.  "Whose hands are dirty this time?"

"Elizabeth's," Kerry said.

"Why am I not surprised," Romano muttered.  She was practically the only surgeon left here, and she did tend to cause problems more than most.

"She did an experimental procedure on a liver that hadn't failed yet," Susan said.  "But I don't think it was necessarily wrong.  I mean, the guy had no family until _after _he went into a coma."

"Hey, speaking of Elizabeth," Chuny said, passing by.  "As fascinating as all this medical stuff is, has anyone heard about Dorsett recently?"

"They're still together?" Haleh said incredulously.

Romano forgot to keep chewing his donut and bent his head down, listening intently, trying to hide his interest.  The air felt thick and soupy in his nostrils, smothering him.

"It's been more than six weeks," Chuny said.  "That's gotta be a record for him."

"Two _nights _would be a record for him," Haleh retorted.  

He couldn't listen to any more of this.  With a shaking hand Romano tossed the remainder of his donut into the trash bin under the desk and stood up straight, looking for an easy retreat.

He met Weaver's prying gaze as he tried to slip away.  _What a hawk_, he thought crossly, matching her pointed, knowing look with as evil a glare as he'd ever mustered.

With his office door safely closed behind him and the laughing gossip out of his ears, Romano leaned against the wall, cursing himself out.  Was that a flicker of hope that had died when he heard them talk about Dorsett and Lizzie?  If it was hope, he was more of a fool even than he'd thought himself.

A grim little smile spread over his face.  At least she was back at it, finally.  After three years of occupying herself solely with Mark, Elizabeth Corday had rediscovered the hardheaded ambition she'd forgotten.

That ambition was what he had noticed about her: before the expressive mouth, before the wide blue eyes, he saw that she'd go far if she had to kill to do it.  Her all-consuming drive, so similar to his own, was why he brought her to America – why, leaning against the unforgiving wall, he had to fight to maintain his bleak smile. 

A/N: I promise, these two will actually have a conversation in the next chapter… sorry about this one!  please r/r anyway…


	3. Liability

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, etc.

A/N: I'm not that clear on the administrative positions within the hospital.  As far as I understand, Romano was demoted to head of the ER, Kerry became the chief of staff, and there's some kind of head of surgery position that has to be filled, and I've given that to Elizabeth.  (If this is completely inaccurate, then… well, whatever.  It's not that important.)

**Chapter 3.  Liability**

"Welcome back, Dr. Corday," said the silky voice from behind her.

Elizabeth, who had been resting on a chair in the surgeon's lounge before she picked Ella up, spun around.  Yes, there he was, his chest thrust forward aggressively, his right hand at his hip.  Her hackles rose, recognizing the challenge in his face.

"What are you talking about?"  He could be so random … so surprising.  "Shouldn't I be welcoming you?"

He licked his lips, enjoying whatever edge he thought he'd found.  "I thought you'd abandoned me for the land of the ethically upright," he said.  "I'm rather glad to find out I was mistaken."

"I don't know what you mean by that, _Dr. _Romano," she lied with impeccable dignity.

He jutted his chin out skeptically.  "I knew the old, ruthless Corday was lurking in there somewhere."

"If you're referring to Mr. Fish…"

He smirked, and Elizabeth answered with an icy scowl.  Romano had always commented acerbically on whatever moral lapses he could detect, and his indictments had never had such an effect on her.  

"It _wasn't _an ethical lapse.  I believed it was the right course of action considering his symptoms and the history of success with patients at his stage of development."

"So cutting open Mr. Fish's liver before his time was up had everything to do with his best interests and not with trying out the latest cool trick you saw demonstrated by some hotshot visiting surgeon, is that it?"

"You think I mistreated a patient based on—"

"Your lust for a challenge?" he pronounced.  "I don't know if I think that.  You always did strike me as the adventurous type, though."  

He added this last with a wry little flourish, and Elizabeth felt a flush stain her face.  She was uncomfortably aware of the double entendres, and the deliberate emphasis he'd put on the word _adventurous_. 

Hastily covering her confusion, she said, "There was a complication, I admit, but it was the tube that nicked a blood vessel and it had nothing to do with the procedure itself—"

"Save the posturing for the deposition, all right?" he said.  

"Well, you accused me, didn't you?" Elizabeth said.  "You can't ask me not to defend myself."

He gave her a cool, appraising look that brought an unwelcome flush of embarrassment to the tips of her ears.  It would look like she was blushing before his intense scrutiny.  She was really thinking about Fish's liver.  Not Romano's eyes…

"Defend yourself…?" he repeated.  "If I know you, you'll always be able to do that."

She clenched her jaw, willing the heat to recede from her earlobes.

"You know, I meant what I said before," he said.

She looked up, only to realize Romano was still watching her face with dark, cagey eyes.  "What did you say?"  Maybe he was going to explain that comment about coming back "as long as she was here".

"That I had no idea you still had this sort of thing in you.  I thought you'd gone alarmingly upright over the years.  The word soft even crossed my mind once in awhile."

Elizabeth smiled roguishly, masking an odd twinge of disappointment that she'd misinterpreted him.  "Are you calling me a burnout?"

"Heaven forbid," he said calmly.  "I'm calling you a liability."

She cast around for a good, cutting, brilliant response, but Romano's face grew tense and pale, his lips pinched together as if he were angry.  Before Elizabeth could muster her guns for another round, the door had shut behind him.

She sank back in her chair, her heart pounding.  The encounter had left her winded.  Or off-balance, rather.  He'd been humorless, almost nasty, as if he were dealing with Peter Benton instead of his old friend Lizzie.

~

When the door swung open again, Elizabeth half-expected Romano to return.  But it was only an intern: Lindsay Marshall, young, cocky, with too many blonde streaks in her dark hair.  "You seem worried," Marshall said when she saw Elizabeth's contemplative frown.

"Just my liver patient."

"I heard about that," Marshall said.  "I've always wanted to do that, but I never found the chance.  Was it fun?"

"Sure," Elizabeth said.  "Until he went into a coma."

The other woman either didn't hear the edge in Elizabeth's voice or simply didn't care.  "Too bad," she offered under her shoulder as she left with the papers she'd fetched.

Elizabeth snorted under her breath.  "Yeah."

She pictured the calculated, glossy expression that Romano hadn't allowed to crack since his return, and something sour curled up into her throat.  He'd thrown her at first with his unexpected formality, especially after his drug-induced confession, but she'd regain her footing.  She wasn't going to let Romano revert to treating her like his intern, she didn't have to answer to him anymore.

Anger propelled her quickly down the stairs and to the door of his office.  She stood outside for a minute in indecision, wondering what exactly she'd say; then, without knocking, she pushed her way inside.

The office was unlit except for a small desk lamp casting thin beams over stacks of neatly organized papers.  Elizabeth thought the office was empty until she noticed Robert standing by the wall.  His arm was outstretched, propping him against a shelf in his bookcase, and his head was bent sharply forward.

"Most people feel the need to knock before coming into a private office," he muttered without turning around.

"Robert, it's me."  She took a few steps inside, closing the door behind her.

"Dr. Corday," he said without moving.  "Conscience prickling you?"

"A little.  But it's not your concern, is it?  You're not my superior anymore, have you forgotten?"

A sharp note of laughter shook his shoulders.  "Oh, I was never your superior."

"You know what I mean," she pressed on.  "I don't answer to you anymore.  I'm not your problem; I'm my own problem, since I'm the chief of surgery now—"

"Okay, I get it, I've been demoted and you've taken yet another step up the ladder… can we talk about this later?"

Curious, she approached further, almost on tiptoe, craning her neck to see his face.  His mouth was as tightly controlled as always, his eyes obscured with shadow.  There was nothing in his expression, not anger or even sadness, to tell her why he wasn't moving.

"Robert?" she said, laying her hand lightly on his shoulder.

He jumped and she snatched away her hand, recalling belatedly that she shouldn't have touched him.  Maybe his kindness to Ella earlier, so surprising that she'd had to look over her shoulder to verify it was really he who held her daughter's hand so tenderly, had tricked her into forgetting who he was: Rocket Romano, the untouchable. 

"I mean it," he said.  "Give me five minutes, and then I promise you can storm in here again and yell all you want to."

A drop of perspiration ran down his temple, attracting Elizabeth's attention.  

"Are you in pain?" she asked.

"No," he said shortly.  Robert's shoulder had felt solid, strong, beneath her fingertips in that brief moment of concern, yet now he seemed almost unable to stand.  The hand holding the bookshelf was shaking, the sinewy muscles in his forearm quivering, as if his own weight was too much for him to hold up.  

Elizabeth adopted the businesslike attitude that usually smoothed things out.  They'd fought all the time last year, before the amputation, but if she came at Robert with scissors and scalpel, he'd always sit still and let her deal with the wound.  Now, she asked impassively, "What does it feel like?"

"Like someone chopped off my arm," he grunted.

"I meant, is it stump pain or phantom limb pain?"

"Why?"

"I'll write you a scrip—"

"No," he interrupted.  "Don't get me anything.  I'm not taking any painkillers anymore."

"Have you seen a doctor about this?"

"It's never happened before," he said.

"Well, then let me get you something, just for now," she said.  "You can see a specialist tomorrow."

Romano finally turned a dull, set face toward her.  She was close enough to hear his shallow, tight breaths, see the tiny white marks of tension at the sides of his nose.  "I'll see someone about it," he said.  "But you need to leave me now."

Elizabeth stared at him for a moment, wishing she could see beyond the pools of darkness shadowing his deep-set eyes.  It occurred to her then that she had spent a lot of time today trying to read his expressions.  

"All right," she said after a moment.  "Good night."


	4. Turncoat

DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own these characters, although I would desperately like to.  Especially Romano.  ::sigh::

The last week has sent me enough technological problems to last a lifetime, but I've finally managed to get this chapter up.  Reviews appreciated, as always!

**Chapter 4.****  Turncoat**

He hadn't been prepared to see Lizzie today.  It was Sunday, too warm for late September, and he'd taken Gretel for a walk, the leash wrapped around his right hand, the dog padding wearily along beside him.  She was slowing down; it wouldn't be more than a year or two before she was gone.

In a fit of unaccountable idiocy, Robert had allowed himself to lead the dog over the bridge where he and Elizabeth had spoken before his surgery.  It had always been a favorite place of his to wander, more so now that a certain spot emanated the memory of a pair of blue eyes filled with warmth, an auburn curl blowing in the wind.

That mass of red hair caught his eye from hundreds of feet away, but he always noticed red hair now, he couldn't help it.  Only by the blonde toddler trotting beside her did he recognize Elizabeth.  For a full minute he watched the two wend their way through the crowd, approaching ever closer, readying himself for another bout with his weak side.  When Elizabeth was close enough to catch sight of him, she halted and pointed him out to Ella, as Romano gently nudged Gretel along. 

She approached with a cautious smile, holding Ella's hand.  Her hair was tied loosely back, a few curls still loose around her face, and her white halter top dipped distractingly low at the neck.  There were sunglasses shading her eyes.

"Hi, Robert," she said.  Distant, cautious, polite.

He leaned against the railing, reminding himself to treat her like another hated colleague.  After the kind of slip that he'd made all he could do was keep his distance, pretend it had been the morphine talking that day in the hospital.  "Day off?"

"I have a shift tonight.  Ella and I were just out enjoying the end of the Indian summer."

They both looked down at Ella, who was reaching a dimpled little hand out to Gretel.  With a slight return of her old gusto, Gretel sniffed at the hand, then proceeded to lick Ella all over her little face.

"Oh, God," Robert muttered as Ella started whimpering and pushing the dog away.  "She likes you, honey, she's not trying to hurt you…"

Elizabeth seemed amused at his stuttering contrition.  "It's all right.  Ella loves dogs, she just doesn't really like being slobbered on."

"I can fix that.  Take this, will you?"  He handed the leash over to Elizabeth and knelt down in front of Ella, who quieted down a bit and stared at him, frowning.

"Don't tell me you carry a handkerchief."

"Are you kidding?  What are sleeves for?"  He wore long-sleeved shirts everywhere now, no matter the weather.  Pulling the cuff up over his hand with a deft twist of his thumb, he wiped Gretel's affection off Ella's cheeks.  The little girl took the opportunity to blow her nose with great gusto into his sleeve.

Hastily he stood up, trying to contain his dismay.  Lizzie was openly laughing.  "Let me roll up that sleeve for you," she said.  "Don't grimace like that, kids are supposed to be messy."

Flushing at this new reminder that he couldn't do things like roll up a sleeve for himself anymore, yet acquiescent as always when she talked kindly like that, Romano held out his hand.  "You can drop the leash.  Gretel's not going anywhere fast."

"She seems to have recovered nicely," Elizabeth said, tucking his sleeve up to his elbow.

He sighed.  "Sure.  I guess."

"Look, they're friends again," Elizabeth said, nodding to her daughter and the dog.  Ella had knelt down and started petting the huge, grizzled head.  She even accepted the dog's kisses with equanimity.

Robert nodded.  He'd been so distracted by the gentle hands on his arm, he hadn't been paying attention to Gretel at all.  "She's mellowed out over the years.  The dog, I mean."

"Unlike her owner."

His laugh, he knew, was not gracious.  Ignoring his bad mood, Lizzie shook the hair out of her face and leaned back, facing Ella and the dog, her elbows propped on the railing behind her.  Romano faced out at the water.  His nostrils filled with the summery, greasy scent of warm sunscreen, mingled with the light perspiration shimmering on her neck.

"So, a night shift, huh?" he said.  "That's one thing I don't miss about surgery, is the hours… When will you sleep?"

"Tomorrow morning, if I'm lucky.  God knows, what with feeling so shitty already, and the Fish lawyer wanting to do a deposition.  I just don't want Ella to forget I exist."

"You're pretty tough to forget."

She turned slightly, facing him.  "How's the arm?"

This again.  "Still gone," he said shortly.

"Yes, Robert, I _know _that.  I was asking about the pain.  But I guess you don't want me to ask about it."

"Not particularly."

"Fine.  I won't."

_Good_, he wanted to say, like a bratty second-grader.

"Here's a question," Elizabeth said after a moment.  "Why have you been calling me Dr. Corday?"

Romano couldn't have this discussion with her eyes hidden.  It put him at a disadvantage, like he was the only one vulnerable to examination.  Before speaking, he reached out and flipped the sunglasses up off her eyes, nestling them on top of her head.  A slight, puzzled frown wrinkled Elizabeth's eyebrows.  Her face was too expressive; it betrayed her when she was hurt or unsure.

Romano swallowed back whatever foolishness had overtaken his mind when her fingers brushed his arm a few minutes ago.  "Now I can see your face," he said.  "Ask me again."

Her voice was low-toned, husky, as she repeated the question.  "Why have you been calling me Dr. Corday?"

With her voice throaty and full like that, he could manage only mild sarcasm.  "Isn't that your name?"

"I've always been Lizzie to you.  You've never bothered to call me anything else, even in front of patients."

"I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and show greater respect for my colleagues," he quipped.

"There's always an ulterior motive with you, Robert."

"I didn't think you liked being called Lizzie."

She hesitated.  "Right.  I don't."  Then, after another pause that reduced him to breathless suspense, "I called you twice this summer."

Again that low voice, conjuring up gleeful imaginings in his sun-saturated mind.  He wanted to slide his tongue inside that slight opening of her mouth – crush her against the splintered railing, her body bent backwards under his – tangle rough fingers in her hair—

He wrenched his gaze away and stared moodily out at the horizon.  "I know," he said phlegmatically.  "I got your messages."

"You stopped coming to the hospital for physical therapy.  You disappeared."

"You didn't expect me to keep coming back to _County for medical care, I hope," he said.  "I've seen the way this place works.  Look at the mess they made of the reattachment in the first place.  I found a therapist I could trust over at Mercy."_

She tried to laugh.  "Turncoat."

He grinned roguishly.  "I'm shameless."  And there he was, letting down his guard again, practically flirting.  He'd never learn.

She scarcely noticed the smile.  "You never called back.  I had no idea where you were."

"Well, now you know," he said simply.

A minute passed in brooding, ugly silence before Lizzie said, "I could have helped you."

He refused to meet her eyes.

"I came by the hospital while you were in recovery, but the nurses said you didn't want any visitors, even your sister.  All I could do was send flowers."

He remembered: a dozen white daisies, which, still fresh and earthily fragrant, he had discarded in disgust when the temptation to press them and keep them forever became too great.  Then, later, had come another, sweeter delivery, without a note because who else would have sent it?  He reminded her: "And ice cream."  Cherry Garcia.  A trifling little signal, nearly forgotten.

She nodded, but looked down at her hands.  "I could have been there.  I could have helped you the other night, with your arm."

Romano seized the opportunity to be cruel, although it gave him no pleasure: "Thanks for this parade of dutiful concern, Lizzie, but you're not my doctor anymore.  It's over, the arm is gone."

Her eyes darted over to him, then away, then back.  Good.  She was off-balance again.

"Your help is no longer necessary," he continued.  "Or appreciated.  So bestow it on someone who needs it, all right?"

Elizabeth expelled a quick breath, as if he'd punched her, but after a second she was tossing her head, regaining her inimitable composure.  She flipped her sunglasses down over her eyes, and her voice had a cold, smooth hardness to it.  "Okay, Robert, I'll leave you alone.  I'll stand back as far as you want, as long as you want, until you go crazy from the pain in your arm.  Whatever makes you happy."

Some contrarian voice inside of him remarked with approval, _Nice__ recovery, even as something else reeled back in blinding hurt.  Before kneeling down to play with Ella, Romano telegraphed wry, caustic approval with a raised eyebrow, a smirking smile, to salute her last-minute resurgence.  No one could squash Lizzie; her superb, brilliant spirit was her loveliest charm and his greatest undoing._


	5. Drops of Water, Rivers of Blood

Disclaimer: These characters belong to NBC … or Michael Crichton… or something.  Anyway, not to me.

A/N: Okay, so… er… New version of this chapter up; portrays more realistic world in which characters with one arm can _not_ drive.  I kinda forgot to explain about the chauffeur before.  (Yeah, I guess that's why other people use betas, right?)

**Chapter 5.****  Drops of Water, Rivers of Blood**

The rain had started too soon.  Elizabeth had taken Ella to daycare with her, planning to bring her home on the El.  But droplets were pelting down the size of dimes and nickels, and Ella's head was bare.

"Damn," she murmured, standing just inside the door.  She hadn't even brought an umbrella to work, expecting the rain to begin later that night.

"Such language in front of your daughter!" chided the sarcastic voice from behind her.

Elizabeth turned and realized Romano had been standing there, looking out at the rain with her.  She flushed – he had a point.  "I didn't know it would rain this evening," she explained.  "I'm hoping it'll die down in a minute so we can walk to the station."

"If it were just you, Lizzie, I think I'd laugh at you and go about my business.  But I don't have the heart to let Ella get soaked."  He ruffled the blonde ringlets affectionately.  "Want a lift?"  
"Are you driving your Jag?" Elizabeth queried, eyebrow arched.

"So you're a closet materialist – I'll remember that," he said with a smile.  "You're in luck, the answer is yes.  Well, technically the one doing the driving is Bill, the guy I hired to cart me around from now on."  
Elizabeth looked down, embarrassed to have made the slip.  "Then let's go, shall we?"

He nodded towards the door, but Kerry passed by and called Elizabeth peremptorily.

She tried to protest, but there was no arguing with a chief of staff who shouted for you and then left without listening to your excuses.  "Robert, I should go see her," she said with a rather unreasonable surge of anger at Kerry for … what?  "You can go ahead, Ella and I will take the El."

"I'll wait," he shrugged.  "So will Bill."

~

Ten minutes later when Elizabeth hadn't yet made her reappearance, Romano decided to get something to keep him awake for the drive home.  He had hardly slept since he'd come back to work, because the pain in his arm chased him into hideous, screaming nightmares when he finally escaped its hold long enough to drift off.

"Can I borrow a dollar?" said a deep feminine voice from his side.

He turned to see a woman, a girl really – no more than eighteen or nineteen – smiling hopefully at him.  She had beautiful hair, golden blonde, straight and sleek; and enormous azure eyes in a round, strong-featured face.  Little puckered creases at the corner of her mouth.  Pale, smooth skin; a strong, substantial nose.

The irrational, deep-seated recognition nearly knocked Romano over.  "Who are you?" he gasped.

She held out a hand he was almost afraid to shake, half fearing his hand might pass through her flesh like so much mist; but her grip was warm, firm, alive.  "Carrie Lambert," she said.  "I'm sorry to bother you, but I've been waiting here a couple of hours now, and I'm incredibly thirsty."

"Uh –"  Romano gathered his wits.  She was only a patient who happened to remind him of someone.  He wouldn't let himself get so flustered – wouldn't allow the old ache of defeat mingled with unacknowledged loss to rise in his throat.  "No problem.  Coke?"  
"God, no," she laughed.  "I'm trying to be nice to my stomach, it's been through quite enough.  How about a Dasani?"

He obliged, and Carrie Lambert scooped his purchase from the slot near the ground.  "Thanks," she said.

After buying his Coke, Robert sat down next to her, keeping an eye out for Lizzie.  "So, you've been waiting two hours?" he said.  "I feel terrible."

"It's not your fault."

"Well, I'm supposedly the chief of the ER," he confessed.

"In that case it's entirely your fault," she joked.  "Actually, I'm not sure I'm such an emergency.  It's just a little stomachache.  I'm only here because I had cancer awhile back, and I got worried."

"Cancer," he repeated.  "Well, why don't I work you up now?"

"Robert, I'm so sorry," Elizabeth exclaimed, rounding the corner without warning.  "Weaver wanted to talk to me about Fish and—"

She skidded to an abrupt halt when she saw who he was with.  Her eyes met Robert's, and they shared a momentary, tacit, pained sympathy.  "I'm sorry," she said, "am I interrupting?"

"No, I was just going to work up this young lady—" He had started to explain when Carrie coughed spastically, spewing blood over herself and Romano, then slumped over.  

After a startled cry, he began instinctively to yell orders, to try to help.  Screamed for a gurney, for a crash cart.

Inside a desperate haze, forgetting himself and his accursed arm – feeling it, in fact, at his side, made of flesh and blood, a psychosomatic limb as strong and functional as the real one – he became vaguely aware of the restrictive touch on his shoulder, trying to guide him away, to give room to the real doctors.

Elizabeth's eyes were a deep, kind blue, gazing into his with warm concern, but her words were hasty and sharp.  "Move aside, Robert," she was calling.  "Let me do this."

Blindly he reached out for Ella, and, reading his thoughts, Elizabeth deposited her daughter in his firm one-handed grasp.  As the gurney rolled an unconscious Carrie to Trauma, with Elizabeth running alonside the prostrate body and echoing his orders of a moment ago, Robert gathered Ella closely against him.  With a blissful smile she wrapped chubby arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against the scratchy five o'clock shadow on his chin.

~

Carrie was stabilized when Elizabeth handed the case off to Pratt and headed to chairs looking for her daughter.

Four years ago, she had stood over a face eerily like that one in the most bitter defeat of her life.  A pretty, endearing face, round, a bit babyish, with oddly long lashes.  And behind it a quick brain, an abundance of dreams and potential.

Across from her, with her, always near her, there had been Romano.  His blunt lack of sentiment had been oddly comforting after the first go-round.  Then, as their beloved patient crashed, they had argued without enmity or rivalry, his hands brushing her wrists and hips, a reassuring and supportive touch.  In the last furious moments they had worked fluidly, seamlessly, like one surgeon with four hands.

At first it was Robert who recognized their defeat: his eyes met hers across the table in exhausted hopelessness, as he grimly waited for her to come to the same realization.  He told her to stop: impassive, cool, he forced her into acceptance.  But then he had broken, rebelling against the inevitable, and Elizabeth had only been able to choke out his name, reminding him of reality.

Give and take – back and forth – Lizzie and Robert.  They had merged and blended for those few wretched hours, tasted with one sensation the bitterness of her death.  The old harmony of that pairing, parallel and opposite at once, had taken on a new meaning in those final moments, and Elizabeth would never be able to hate her antagonist unreservedly again.

But did _he_ hate _her?  After Carrie collapsed, he'd seemed to forget that he couldn't be a doctor anymore.  When a whispered warning from her didn't work, Elizabeth had no choice but to pull him away.  Then, seeming still not to hear her, he had looked up with black, inhuman wrath etched on his face._

She approached the chairs nervously, wondering how the unpredictable Romano would amuse her child.  But Ella was laughing happily, chocolate smeared all over her face.  As Elizabeth came nearer, Robert put down the bag of M&M's he'd been feeding Ella with a guilty face.  She smiled tiredly at the two miscreants, and Ella jumped up and ran towards her.

Robert wouldn't look at her.  The side of his neck and face was splattered with blood.  There were more droplets on his hand.  Odd that Ella wasn't frightened; she hadn't had the chance to develop squeamishness, what with all the things she'd witnessed when Elizabeth forgot for a moment to protect her.

"Is she okay?" he asked.

Elizabeth broke away from her reverie.  "Stable.  There was a bowel obstruction."

He tossed the candy into a nearby trash can.  "I figured.  Ready to go?"

"Robert, there's blood all over you, and chocolate on Ella.  You're both frightening to look at."

"She was hungry."

"It's okay, I just think you should get cleaned up."  She took Ella's hand and, beckoning to Romano to follow her, led them both to an empty exam room to wash up.  A few vigorous swipes with a wet towel cleaned up Ella's mess.

"Come on," Elizabeth said, turning to him.

His expression was as difficult as always to read, but she knew its nuances intimately enough to detect his resentment.  Knowing Ella's presence would restrain his temper, she simply reached out to take his wrist and guide his hand under a stream of warm water.  He trained his eyes on the pale pink ribbons of water and blood running off his hand.

"She reminded you of Lucy, too?" she murmured, squeezing soap onto his hand.

"I forgot she was dead when I saw her," he said.  His mouth tightened as she lathered his hand, allowing the suds to wash off in the hot, cleansing stream.

Elizabeth wet another paper towel and pressed it to the side of his face, the hollow underneath his cheekbone.  "It was less than four years ago," she said.  "It seems like longer.  So much has changed."

"You're telling me," he said.  At last he allowed himself to look directly at her, and she was stunned by the emptiness in his eyes.

His shoulders tightened as she began to wash the last traces of blood off his neck.  Little rosy rivulets ran glistening down his skin, dipping and rising in the uneven texture of muscle and skin and tension and weakness.  Elizabeth watched their path, afraid to look up and catch him as she had frequently caught him before, watching her with warm hungry eyes when he thought she wouldn't see.

"I'm sorry that took so long," she said abruptly.

"It's all right.  I'm glad—"  He paused as she turned and threw the towel away, bending at the same time to lift Ella to rest on her hip.  "I'm glad it was you taking care of her and not a bunch of incompetent ER docs."

"Careful."  She could smile teasingly at him, now that her hands were safely removed from his throat and her daughter's distractingly heavy body filled her arms.  "You are an ER doc now."

He groaned, making a funny rueful face at Ella just to hear her shriek with laughter.  "Don't remind me."


	6. Certain of You

DISCLAIMER: _ER_: not mine.  E & R : also not mine.

A/N: A longer one today.  Enjoy!

**Chapter 6.****  Certain of You**

Elizabeth had called Chris and asked her to put Ella to bed.

She had just finished a meeting with Weaver and risk management, trying to defend her treatment of Jonathan Fish.  Even for Ella, she couldn't return to her dreary, closed house for another night of playing around with Eddie, denting the surface of a lonely ache that seemed especially gnawing today.  His interest was as persuasive, smooth, lighthearted as he was himself and she couldn't believe that was all she'd been wanting, needing, today.

Last night, after he got home from the conference, she'd been telling him about the lawsuit, as she'd discussed another with Mark long years ago.  Eddie had held her face in both of his perfect, beautiful hands and given her a warm kiss on her forehead.  "I know you, Elizabeth," he'd said.  "You'd never do that kind of thing."  

_I know you_.  Spoken so coolly, so surely, like the extent of her life, her character, her past was encompassed in the knowledge he gained in her bed at night.  His faith in her was like Mark's had been: simple and ingenuous.

Maybe Eddie was right to believe her.  In spite of all the shit she'd taken, she believed her motives had been pure… this time.

But _he_ – whose address copied from the hospital directory was scribbled like a brand on her hand – had spent enough time parsing her for vulnerability to know there was a coldblooded streak that superseded her better judgment once in awhile.  There would always be a part of her that was wholly capable of what Eddie thought she'd never commit.  

Elizabeth had been pacing the sidewalks of the city for above an hour, and the autumn night had driven a chill deep within her skin.  There were only three blocks left to travel, unless she managed to get ahold of herself before she made a mistake.

Wildly afraid, deliciously giddy, she stood at the doorstep and rang the bell.  The house was bigger even than Lucy's youthful hyperbole had once described it; its beauty darker.  Maybe he had chosen the house for its gloom, wanting to warn intruders away before they could spoil his simmering solitude.

After several minutes, during which Elizabeth did not ring the bell again, the door crept open.

He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a slender triangle of luminous skin at his neck and a few wisps of soft hair on his chest.  He wasn't wearing his prosthetic, so one sleeve hung at his side in defeated limpness.

Robert's face had been disinterested and annoyed, but when he saw her his expression changed completely, growing wary.  His eyes gave him away, burning with flat, helpless welcome. 

"Did I wake you?" she asked.

"I hate sleeping now," he said.  "I'm glad for anything that keeps me awake."

She swallowed.  "Can I come in?"

He pulled the door open further in curt invitation.  Elizabeth stepped inside and peered around at an expanse of hallway, unlit but for the bleak overflow of the porch lights through the window.  The walls were bare, as if he had just moved in and hadn't had the time to make himself at home.

Then she turned her attention back to Robert.  His face had always been more legible to her in the shadows, when he lost the defenses that daylight demanded.  She detected his helpless awkwardness, the wavering between his inclination to be kind to her and his need to be brutal.

Romano reached out to help with the coat she was shrugging off, folded it with practised, one-handed ease, and laid it on a nearby hall table.  "Uh, sit down.  Please," he said, his pointed courtesy belying the fervent curiosity in his eyes.

Elizabeth nodded, and they walked side-by-side into a cavernous, fantastically tidy room.  At last he put a light on, dispelling the strange, subliminal intimacy that always sprung up between them in darkened spaces: living rooms, offices … lounges.  Watery yellow light leaked out to illuminate a den with a gargantuan flat-screen TV in one corner and a silky mahogany grand piano in the other.

Romano motioned her politely to a circle of leather seats in front of the TV but remained standing himself, as if to defend his territory.  Instead of sitting, she perched on the high, wide arm of a sturdy chair and faced him, defiant.

"So where's Ella?"

"At home with Chris."

"Did she ever go to see her sister?"

"She stayed one night, but she came back right away.  It was only a scare, nothing serious."

He caught sight of her hand, with his address still scrawled in black marker on the back.  Narrowing his eyes to see better, he lifted her hand in his and traced his thumb over the writing, with his other fingers supporting her palm.  Elizabeth closed her eyes, choked with the sensation of his unconscious caress.  The ache that had tortured her all day like a physical hunger spread outward, downward.

"No paper?" he asked, releasing her hand as easily as if it cost him nothing to do it.

Elizabeth forced her eyes open.  "I'd left the building already," she breathed.  "I ran back in to look up the address and I was too rushed to find a Post-It."

"Rushed," he repeated skeptically.  "To get here, at two in the morning."

"I just finished a hernia.  I'm sorry it's so late."

He scrutinized her with all his assured, piercing acuity.  Behind that examination she could sense an encouraging nervousness: he was trying to smother his involuntary hope.  "Well, what is it?" he asked.  "What's so desperate it couldn't wait till morning?"

She paused, enjoying his suspense.  "You remember, don't you?"

His eyes clouded over with caution.  She could barely hear his murmured answer.  "Remember what?"

"The amp – the operation.  I scrubbed in, and—"  
"Yeah," he said before she could continue.  "They told me.  I've been meaning to ask you how it went?"

How it went?  Elizabeth had not often spent a more draining day than those hours sitting over her rival's damaged limb, trying to be professional as she secretly mourned the end of a brilliant career and a tormented fight.  Swallowing wounded rage at the callousness of the others.  Sneaking a glance over the curtain at his slackened face as she handed over the instruments that would sever his arm.  "It was… difficult," she said slowly.

"I used to love the bone saw," Romano said unexpectedly.  "They're dramatic, you know?  Powerful.  Did you get to use one on me?"

 "No," she said briefly.  "I refused to."

"Oh, I see, you sicced Edson on me, no wonder the thing hurts."  He paused.  "You wouldn't do it?"

She smiled a little bit.  "There's a reason they tell us not to operate on people we…"

Just as she slowed down and frantically wondered how to finish the sentence, Romano cut in.  He had recognized her awkwardness, she knew, but he pretended he was being his typical abrasive self.  "Used to work for?"

She assented to that.  It was an easy enough answer, for now.  Then she returned doggedly to her original question.  "What about afterwards?"

"After?"  His posture was stiff and expectant.

"I was closing up a bleeder and you woke up a little and said—"

"I know what I said," he cut her off sharply.  "At first I thought it was a dream – I hoped it was a dream – but I asked Shirley.  She found the whole thing pretty damned amusing, by the way."

He took a moment to swallow, to lick his lips.  Elizabeth found herself watching the tip of his tongue, wondering how his mouth might taste to her own.  Then he said carefully, "I was sedated."

 _Fine, she thought irritably.  If he wanted her to pretend to him, act like nothing had changed in that moment, then she would oblige him.  With a vengeance.  "I _know_ that," she said.  "I know what that type of medication does to people.  I've had dozens of patients say bizarre things while they were—"_

"Cut the crap, Lizzie," Romano said wearily.  "We both know it wasn't just the medication." 

She exulted, realizing that in spite of his pretense of heartlessness there were certain things between them that he held sacred.  Robert was always a revelation to her.  He could create distance just as she tried to talk seriously, only to sweetly and unexpectedly appease her with momentary gentleness when she in turn became aloof.

But a moment later he said with brittle hostility, "If I've answered your question, I think you should go home and get your beauty sleep.  I know I need mine."  

His eyes were alert, glittering, angry.  She'd finally got him on the defensive.

"Is that why you've been acting so cold?" Elizabeth said.  "Because of what you said while you were out of your head?"

He gave her a slightly amused look.  "I know I've had a few lapses in control where you're concerned, Elizabeth, but I didn't mean to give you the impression that I was completely warm and fuzzy."

_Oh, right_, she thought.  _I forgot – you've always _been a prick_.  But still… "You know as well as I do," she insisted, "nothing's the same since you came back.  But that's your plan, right?  You said what you really meant just once, to the only friend you have, and now you want to shut me out for the rest of your life."_

"I can't shut you out," he murmured hoarsely.  "I shouldn't even have let you in here, not tonight.  –But I'm helpless."

 Something about the plain, soft way he added the last sentence led Elizabeth to place light fingertips on his wrist, sliding just under the loosened cuff of his shirt.  A light, almost innocent touch, where the smooth strength of the hand met the taut muscles of the forearm.

Robert froze, his eyes crackling with a moment's fierce conflict. Then he lifted that hand to her waist, ruffling the hemline of her shirt, warm wide fingers spreading over supple skin: neither light nor innocent, the way she knew he'd always wanted to touch her.  Jerkily, as if trying to stop himself, he stepped closer to her.  His movements were defeated, pleading, sorrowful.  

He sought her lips with a restraint that infuriated and thrilled her past self-defense or control.  She arched her back towards him, trying to close every space that separated them.  His mouth tasted warm and sweet and stale, the taste of lonely glasses of beer on empty nights.

A brief, instinctive reluctance braced his body, and then he drew a ragged breath through his nostrils and gave himself up.  His fingernails raked across her skin, drawing her yet closer.  She broke the kiss to gasp in delicious pain, and her name escaped breathlessly from his lips.

Through soft, warm flannel she distinguished muscle and rib, sliding her hands up his chest.  She pulled a button from its snug hole at his throat, and then another, opening the shirt at his shoulders.  Traced the smooth sharp line of a collarbone, the deep valley underneath it, the undulation of shoulder muscle.

Then, as her playful explorations seemed too close to the ravaged site of his left arm, he twitched away from her hands.  She tried to retreat, to return to undressing him, but he tore away, almost recoiling from her touch.

They faced each other, both uneasy.  Whatever crazy certainty that kiss had brought her faded away as Elizabeth looked at his dark, closed face.  "Did I hurt you?" she asked quietly.

He shook his head.

"What is it, then?"  Elizabeth could hardly speak for the aching confusion that tonight had wrought.  She had not come here for this.  Had not, even in their charged, unsettling silences, believed she wanted it.

For a second Robert hesitated, his face pensive, and then he lifted his hand to her face, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb.  Elizabeth, this time, did not pull away.  His eyes searched her, probing for the uncertainty she couldn't hide.  

After a long, sweet moment, when he detected her hesitation, he snatched his hand away.  "What are you doing here?" he asked.  "Did you come here to comfort me?  To make this better?"

She fumbled to explain the motives she didn't understand herself.  "No.  I don't know.  It was an impulse."

His voice was low and forced.  "You shouldn't have come here unless you knew what you were doing." 

"Look," she said, trying to explain herself and melt the coldness that had permeated his face, "whatever this is, it's not, it's not… pity."

The word was almost impossible to spit out.  As she knew it would, speaking it deepened his distrust.  "Elizabeth," he said, "you don't know the difference.  You and Mark –" 

She choked.  "Robert—"

"No, let me talk," he said relentlessly.  "The years that you knew Mark Greene were a series of disasters accumulating on top of him.  His parents, the brain tumor, your daughter, the Ecstasy overdose.  You stuck with him, thinking that was the same as a marriage.  And now you want to make it better, you want it to be all right, the arm and its goddamned inescapable ghost and the fact that I can't do_ a single thing for myself anymore.  But it can't get better, there's no way to get it back."_

"You," she said slowly, trying to hide her reaction, "are always a treat to watch when you're intoxicated."

Robert seemed vaguely surprised to hear that he was drunk.  Elizabeth, no longer caring what he thought she wanted from him, stepped back, so she was standing several feet from him.  

She felt suddenly, deeply violated.  How thoughtless she'd been to trust this bitter wreckage of a man.  To forget his true nature because she caught a glimpse of another side that must have been feigned, only to have him tear into her past and try to strip her of the meaning she had found in it.  He didn't love her.  He'd only liked her face, or maybe what he could see of himself in her.  She didn't believe he was capable of more than that.

"Well, you were right," she said.  "I wouldn't have come at all, if I'd been thinking straight.  I'm sorry."

A brief nod.  Stoic, cold, final.  She wanted to see remorse in his eyes, but in spite of her fervent wish she had to admit to herself that there was none.

Her coat was still lying on the hall table.  She walked out of the room and picked it up, throwing it over her arm, then straightened the hem of her shirt.  Blood smeared her fingertips where his nails had ripped through her skin.

The heavy oaken door slid open with a melancholy groan, allowing a burst of coldness from the October air.  Elizabeth drew her coat tightly around her shoulders and flung herself out into the night.


	7. Hyperbaton

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and am using them in this story for nothing other than private emotional redress for their gross under-use by NBC, who _does own them._

A/N: Well it certainly has been a long time.  Blame it on serious writer's block, procrastination, or plain old summertime laziness.  Sorry for the delay, just in case anyone cares (and I have no idea if you do unless you _review… hint, hint…)_

**Chapter 7.**** Hyperbaton**

He had sent her away.

He still could hardly believe it, though he had thought of nothing else since he woke up this morning (not even the headache that raged between his temples, reminding him that last night for the first time he had tried to drown out his inner voices with alcohol).

Goddamned bad luck, too, that he'd chosen last night to do it.  When she showed up, he should have slammed the door in his face, recognizing the danger.  Of course, instead he opened the door, invited her inside.  His brain was a fog, except for the image of her face, that auburn hair gilt by the dim porch light.

He'd seen the way her eyes flew downwards to his mouth, then fiercely fought their way back up to his eyes, in that electric second when he touched her waist.  That path was well known to him, he so often had to restrain himself from looking at her lips.  Another reversal, seeing the process from the other side.

He had often wondered how Elizabeth Corday might look at other men.  At Mark, at Benton.  Or that slimy Dorsett.  Now he knew.  Widened eyes, as if she were coming to a realization as she looked at him; a silvery brilliance overlaying their pellucid blue.  Her lips had fallen slightly, unconsciously, open.

_God damn you,_ _Lizzie, _he thought as he stormed into the hospital and stalked into his office, _it was only a chase.  I always thought if you showed up at my door one night – if you stayed – the curiosity would be gone.  When I ended up seeking you out, allowing you to come too close – sending you ice cream, touching your face – regretting it afterwards, it was just manipulation.  Just maneuvering._

He doubled back on his own lies, because he despised cowardice.  In fact, he knew as well as Lizzie did, it had been a long time since that was true.

He had been out on the balcony last night because sleep was impossible.  In his dreams, he always reached out and took her face in two hands.  He would wake up and feel the imagined shape of her body recede from his senses, the healthy warmth of his lost arm would become an inferno of cold, shadowy pain, and he would send a slow and accepting exhalation into the empty side of the bed.

~

Weaver accosted Elizabeth as soon as she entered the hospital, still aching and sore from a sleepless, feverish night.

"Can you see Carrie Lambert?" she said.  "She asked for the first doctor that saw her."

Typically, she walked away before Elizabeth could answer, crutching down the hall in search of Pratt, who was being Pratt again.  Sighing, Corday made her way towards the elevators.  She would wait till she was in the privacy of an empty elevator before paging Romano, who was probably the doctor Carrie had wanted to see.

But he was already outside of recovery, as if waiting for her, when she emerged from the elevator.  His face didn't change when she approached: it was set, cool, indifferent.  His eyes lacked the deep shadows of sleeplessness that adorned her own.

"Lizzie," he greeted her, as she walked by him on her way into the room.

She hesitated, but didn't turn around.  Would he never be done?  Flirting and insulting, teasing and mollifying; from moment to moment, impossibly sweet and then unbearably sadistic; sometimes her friend but much more often her tormenter.  He'd invented that name purely to irritate her, but after awhile – especially recently, since that Sunday afternoon on the bridge – it had become more like something they shared.  The name only he was allowed to use.  And now he was using it, in spite of last night.

"Robert," she said at last, with impeccable coldness.

"Shirley paged me before you did."

"Good.  Then let's go in."  Pointedly, she held open the door for him.  He stared at her for a split second, then slunk by, recovering his swagger only in time to say hi to Carrie with his typical forcefulness.  Elizabeth felt dizzy, but she leaned her head against the door and her vision cleared, allowing her to walk in like a professional.  He wasn't going to win this round: this one was hers.

~

He was keenly, painfully aware of her footsteps behind him as he walked over to Carrie's side, where she lay with a hint of a welcoming smile on her face.  "Morning," he said.

"Hi," she said.  "It's Dr. Romano, right?  They told me that's your name."

"Robert's fine," he said.  From the other side of the bed, Elizabeth shot him a surprised look.  _What? _he wanted to say.  _I can  be friendly, too._

"Good morning, Carrie," she said in her cool, hard voice.  It was a hardness meant, he knew, for him.  Her bedside manner needed work, but not this much work.  "I'm Dr. Corday.  I treated you when you first came into the ER.  Did Dr. Pratt fill you in?"

"No, Dr. Dorsett, I think.  He did the surgery," Carrie said.  "He told me everything that went on."

Elizabeth looked quickly up at Robert and then down again, her face flushing a little.  But he stared stonily at Carrie, pretending the name Dorsett meant nothing to him.  She said softly, "All right, then.  Did you have any questions?"

Carrie shook her head.  "I just wanted to say, you know, thanks for your help," she said.

"Do you have family here with you?  Anyone for us to call?" Robert asked as Elizabeth smiled down at the pillow.

She closed her eyes briefly, then smiled.  "Not unless you want to call the pizza place for me."

"I'm sorry, I don't think pizza is a very good idea—" Elizabeth started.

Carrie grinned again.  "I know.  It was worth a try."

For a moment the eyes of the two doctors met in gentle amusement at their charming patient, but Elizabeth quickly broke her gaze.  He licked his lips, steeling himself: it was so hard to keep his distance from her.  Always had been.

"Do you want me to pick you up something to read?" Robert asked.

Again that surprised look from Lizzie, which burned into his scalp as he bent to hear Carrie ask for the new John Grisham.

"Brain candy," he said.  "You got it.  Lizzie, do you want some coffee?"

"I'm fine."

"It might help," he said.  "You look like hell."

She had been checking the clipboard in her hand, but at that comment she whirled on him, her face blazing.  "I have to go," she snapped.  "I'll stop by later, Carrie.  Good-bye, Dr. Romano."

High heels clicked on the tile floor as Carrie raised her eyebrows at this swift exit.  Romano wanted to call after her, but instead he commented with a sardonic grin, "British women.  So touchy."

"She doesn't seem to like you much," Carrie observed.

He grimaced, but it turned involuntarily into a smile.  "We have our moments."  Oh, yes, they certainly did have their moments.

Carrie raised her eyebrows skeptically.  Romano sighed.  "Look, I should go talk to her.  I'll be back with that book, all right?"

In front of Carrie, he exercised enough restraint to walk slowly out of the room.  Then, safely out in the hallway, he sped up, chasing after Elizabeth's back as she strode away.


	8. Good Care

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters in this chapter, either, just in case that wasn't clear…

**Chapter 8.**** Good Care**

She could hear his voice behind her as she waited for an elevator to take her to surgery. "Lizzie!" he was calling, peremptorily.

Elizabeth willed the unforgiving doors in front of her to open. They opened, but too late: he was behind her, and he said quietly, "Elizabeth."

For that – for the deepness, for the plainness, when he said her real name – she would turn around, as always.

All the softness she'd looked for in his face last night was there. She had to blink to clear her eyes. It was dangerous, being around him after a long and sleepless night. Made her too emotional.

"So I look like hell to you, do I?" she said, eyebrows raised, after they'd stepped into the elevator.

He cocked his head and admitted, "No, not really – to me, anyway."

"I didn't sleep at all last night," she said. "But _you seem very well-rested. And very satisfied with yourself."_

The elevator door dinged open, revealing the surgical wing. Romano followed her out into the hall, waiting for her to continue.

"You're not going to answer, then," she said. "You know you're an arrogant, egotistical prick?"

Her voice was too loud, she realized that even before Robert glared at her to warn her that people were looking. They ducked into the lounge and closed the door.

"You might want to tone down the affectionate voice in public," he cracked, standing by the door. He was smirking, now that she was upset.

Elizabeth expelled a slow breath. Her head was hurting too much to allow a brilliant rejoinder. "Why are you following me? Go see Carrie – at least one person in this whole building enjoys your company. And you seem to be able to enjoy hers."

He paused. "About Mark—"

She slammed her hand down on the counter, furious at him for reminding her exactly why she'd left last night, just when she was about to – to –

"_Don't," she said vehemently. "It's done. You've said it."_

"I was drunk," he said in a low voice.

"Of course you were," she said, and the anger receded, leaving only dizziness and fatigue, "you'd have to be under the influence of some kind of mind-altering substance before you actually talked to me, wouldn't you?"

Romano's lips tightened, and his head moved almost in a negation. "Lizzie—"

Pain exploded into fireworks behind her eyes, bursting brilliantly into her vision. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes, her balance disappearing into a weightless floating sensation. She could hear nothing but the blood in her ears, feel nothing but the hard smooth wall behind her.

~

"Lizzie…" Romano said again. He didn't know how to explain to her, to get through his own habits of dissemblance.

Suddenly he noticed that she was swaying slightly, leaning backwards against the wall, and the hectic colour had deepened in her face. He strode over to her, asking, "Elizabeth? Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes slowly. "Yes. I was just dizzy for a minute. I'm fine."

He laid a hand on her forehead, and her skin was hot and moist to his palm. "Jesus Christ, you're so warm," he said. "You're sick, aren't you?"

"No. I'm fine." She ducked away slightly from him, and he let his hand drop to his side. "I have work to do."

He shook his head. "Let me take your temperature."

"I'm fine, Robert," she snapped.

"You won't get better if you keep trying to work while you're like this," he said.

"Your concern is so touching."

"Come on," he said, trying to be brusque about it. "Don't spread germs to all your patients. If you don't have a fever, you can go ahead and keep working yourself to death. I won't stop you."

Elizabeth blinked and gave in. The thermometer he retrieved from a cabinet, which she yanked from his hand and put in her mouth herself, revealed a fever of 104.5º.

"Will you get some rest now? Please?" he said.

She shrugged. "I could use a nap, I suppose."

He followed her to a nearby, empty room, and she scarcely noticed. Taking a robe out from under the bed, he told her, "Put this on."

Elizabeth took the robe from him in silence and jerked the curtain shut between them.

When he heard her finish and lie down on the cot, he opened the curtain and walked over to her with businesslike efficiency. Her body seemed to melt downwards, losing all function, and her eyes drifted closed every few seconds in slow, involuntary blinks. He pulled the blankets around her, tucking them gently around the outlines of her body.

"This fever must be the reason I was stupid enough to come see you last night," Elizabeth muttered sleepily.

He laughed a little. "I'll have to get you sick more often."

But she was hardly listening, and her eyes were fluttering closed. Robert couldn't move away; he stood looking at the pure ivory outlines of her jaw, the beauty of her face – unconventional, but overpowering, even dimmed as it was by illness. 

Unconsciously he reached out, smoothing her hair back. "I'm going to go get Carrie's book for her," he told Elizabeth, as if she could still hear him. "I'll be back to see you later."

~

Elizabeth drifted awake later that night. There was a shape moving around in the room. She could hear it, but it was too dark to see.

"Dr. Corday? You awake?"

She felt a faint shiver of disappointment at the unfamiliar voice. It wasn't _him. "Who's that?"_

"Michael Gallant, ma'am."

A soft light flickered on, revealing Gallant looking around on the counter. Elizabeth came to the sudden realization that she was lying in a hospital bed and that – surprise of all surprises – Romano was sitting in a chair pulled very close to the bed, dozing. His hand was covering hers, resting on her stomach, and his head was drooped in sleep.

"Robert?" she breathed, shocked.

Gallant shrugged. "He's been here all night. He wouldn't let us wake you up, and he wouldn't leave. Everyone was too scared to go against him. He's a little intimidating."

She smiled. "Yeah." She kind of remembered when she thought he was intimidating. It was a long time ago. Turning her palm upwards, she linked her fingers with the warm, sturdy ones covering them. "Where's my daughter? I left her in day care."

"He called your nanny," Gallant said. "He said you needed to sleep… Are you feeling better?"

Elizabeth nodded. "I just had a bit of a fever. It was nothing."

"Okay." He retrieved the clipboard he'd been looking for from the counter and said, "Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you, Michael," she said.

The door shut, and Elizabeth was free to examine Robert. His face was looser when he slept, quieter, and very close to hers. Her free hand crept around his neck, touching the deep dent at the base of his skull.

His eyes slid half-open, and she quickly pulled her hand away. "Lizzie," he murmured. "Still alive?"

"Just barely," she smiled.

He looked down, seeming to notice their linked fingers. "I called your buddy Dorsett," he said, "but he wasn't home."

"You called Eddie?" she said.

Robert shrugged. "I thought you might want to see him, since you're sick and he's your…"

She couldn't help but smile again. Here he'd known the whole time she was seeing Eddie, and he hadn't been rancorous or even let on he knew. "I'm surprised at your tranquility, Robert," she said. "I'd've expected a little more unreasonable jealousy than _that_."

"Gotta grow up sometime, eh?"

Her chest tightened. She almost wanted him to be jealous, the way he had been with the others. "So it doesn't matter to you?"

Elizabeth waited in trembling suspense for his answer. After a long moment, as he let go of her fingers and sat up straighter, away from her face, Robert said, "Is this the part where the girl waits for the right answer and the helpless, non-telepathic guy has to guess till he gets it right?"

She sat up, too, leaning her back against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. _And the real Rocket Romano emerges once again… "You're an utter—"_

"—Prick, yes, I know, you've said so. Very forcefully." He smiled lightly at her.

"I sent Dorsett away," she said. "Last night." After arriving home from the conference just last night, he'd appeared like magic in her bathroom while she was soaking in the tub. Had said, _God damn, you look cute wet_, in that flirty way of his, and she'd told him – so abruptly he'd actually lost his cool for about half a second – to go.

"Not for me, I hope," he said almost blandly.

"Of course, for you!" she snapped.

"Never count your chickens before they hatch," he said, oddly.

"What?" she said, giving him a confused look.

"Never mind. Look … uh… why don't I get you some coffee?"

"Robert!" she exclaimed. "Come on. Let me talk to you."

"Lizzie, if I knew how to prevent you from talking, my life would have been a lot quieter over the past six years."

"Liar," she said, half-serious. "You can't get enough."

"True. Below the belt, but true." He was fully serious now, eyes meditative, jaw grim – fingertips trailing a light little curve across the bedcovers, tantalizingly close to her. "You know you've got me, Elizabeth. I'm twisted right around that slender little finger of yours. Let's leave it at that – I've had more than my share of serious conversation for tonight."

"All right," she said. "No more talking."

He looked at her in surprise, waiting, all motion suspended. Elizabeth reached out and touched his face, delighting to see him lean against her hand, his lips almost touching her wrist.

Then he pulled back. "Do I need to state the obvious and tell you why this is a bad idea?"

"Yes. Yes, I think you do," Elizabeth said, getting angry. She was so close – why didn't he just kiss her – why did she have to fall for someone who was scarred and stubborn and fucked up and difficult as all hell? "Why is it a bad idea when you've waited six years for exactly this? I know you, Robert. You've been lying in wait, haven't you? You've been watching for the moment you could turn the tables, have me at _your _mercy – get under my skin and make me lo –"

Midsentence, mid-word, his kiss interrupted her. Crushing his mouth to hers, Robert put his hand behind her neck, pulling her upright, closer to him, his fingers intertwined in her curls. After a startled moment she opened her mouth and kissed him back, putting her arms around him.

"Wait, I'll get you sick–" she murmured against his mouth.

"Go right ahead," Robert said, shifting onto the bed as she straightened out underneath him, pulling him closer. The kiss slowed, deepened.

Then the pager on the floor was beeping to the tune of the alphabet. Elizabeth, cursing mentally, twisted away for a moment. 

After catching her breath, she said, "That would be my nanny."

"I'm starting to hate your pager," he said. "Go on, call her." He lay down next to her, resting his head on the pillow, so that she could get up, smoothing out her robe as she did so. 

Elizabeth looked down at him, drinking in the sight of him stretched out on his back, relaxed and strong at once. Waiting for her. "I'll just call her quickly," she said. "She probably just wants to check in with me."

He winked. "Come back soon?"

"Of course," she said. "You know both of us always end up coming back."

_the__ end_

A/N: Well, this is it. Finally. Thanks to all of you who've reviewed, RL and everyone else. And if you've read this, but you haven't reviewed, please drop me a line to tell me what you think ((Kris8049@aol.com)) 


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